If I didn’t need Finn’s help so desperately, I woulda turned him down for the look on his mama’s face alone. I felt like a heel, but I really did need him.

  “I already made sure Finn would be safe,” I started, looking up at everyone. “That you all would.”

  “What do you mean?” Poppy asked.

  So, I told her. I told her how I’d made an agreement with Death that no matter what, my friends would be safe. That didn’t seem to allay her fears though because she still sighed and shook her head, real concerned like. I wanted to reach out, to take Poppy’s hand, but I wasn’t sure it would be welcome. Then something occurred to me. “I bet I could get Damon to agree again, in writing, like a contract, that, whatever happened, however the game turned out, he wouldn’t go after any of you.”

  It wasn’t enough, I knew that. But it was the best I could do. And, really, that was all we were doing—making the best of a rotten situation.

  Roy tilted his chin down, his jaw working silently for a minute before he said, “It might be the only way to make sure Death doesn’t cheat.”

  Henner didn’t say anything, he just raised our clasped hands and pressed them against his lips as if to tell me everything was gonna be okay. I wasn’t sure I should believe him.

  Poppy stared at her son, her expression torn. Finn gave her what was probably supposed to be a reassuring smile, but it was a little wobbly around the edges.

  “Mom, I’ll be okay. I want to help.”

  She exhaled a shaky breath. “Okay.” She repeated the word, a little louder, as if she were convincing herself. “Okay.” Then she shook her head and I could see tears welling in her peepers that made me feel all guilty inside. She looked at her son. “But I’m going with him, no arguments.”

  “No arguments,” Finn said and reaching over, he gave his mom a hug.

  “I’m going too,” Wanda said as she looked at them both. “It was my idea to send Finn in so there’s no way I’m not going to go as his backup.”

  “Thanks, Aunt Wanda,” Finn said and I couldn’t help my surprise ‘cause I ain’t never heard him refer to her that way.

  “Sure thing, kid,” Wanda responded and gave him a little wink.

  No one said anything for a long moment, until Poppy squeezed Finn’s hand and looked up at the rest of the people assembled. Her eyes were suspiciously red.

  “It’s not a guarantee,” she said, her voice a little thick. “Finn’s power might not work on Death.”

  Wanda nodded, still playing with her straw. There was a shadow of something like sympathy on her face, but her voice was as strong and brisk as always when she said, “Then we’ll be no worse off than we would be without him.”

  Poppy nodded slowly. “It’s a risk we’ll have to take, I guess.”

  Finn smiled like the sun, bright and blinding. “It’s gonna be okay, Mom.” He glanced up, a little self-consciously, at the crowd of people still hovering around our booth. “So, does anyone have a deck of cards?”

  Chapter Twelve

  I sat on the big, squashy sofa in the living room of Cain’s house, a little confused as to how in the heck I’d gotten here.

  I didn’t remember sitting down, and considering the couch was so soft, it practically tried to swallow me the second my behind touched the cushions, it wasn’t something I woulda easily forgotten. The lights were low. The overhead fixture was off, only the two standing lamps with their generic blue lamp shades were giving off any illumination. It cast everything in heavy shadow, making the room feel softer.

  Quiet music trickled from the speakers of the elaborate stereo system by the tele. It was so low that the vocals were barely a murmur, with a guitar adding the occasional bright note. I recognized the song as being ‘Classic Rock’. I could remember when it first came out on the radio though, so I guess ‘classic’ was relative.

  It wasn’t until Cain sat down on the other end of the couch that I realized I was dreaming. Then I felt a little silly. It wasn’t the first time we’d met this way, and after finishing up at the Half-Moon, I’d pretty much stumbled home, exhausted physically and emotionally, and then I’d fallen into bed without being able to even chat with my resident spook. At least this time in the dream we were at his house, somewhere comfortable, and not the police station. Though, my kisser twitched a little in amusement when I realized he was dressed in his lawman duds. Some things never changed.

  It wasn’t like the tan pants and short-sleeved shirt looked bad on him. Actually, the shirt did a great job of showing off how broad his shoulders were, and it got an A for effort where it came to showing the corded strength in his forearms.

  When he was stuck inside my head, or a washed-out ghost drifting around the place, it was easy to forget just how darn handsome Cain Morgan was. That square jaw, shadowed just enough, the determined eyes, furry brows, Roman nose. And being north of forty sure hadn’t done much to soften his body any. No, I was fairly sure those muscles would be… hard.

  I gave myself a little mental shake. If Cain had gone to the effort to pull a dream together, then clearly, he wanted to talk about something, and I needed to stop ogling him and focus. There was something I wanted to talk to him about, anyways, and the sooner we handled that, the better.

  He just sat there, perched on the end of the couch, watching me with that intense, investigator stare of his. It was like he was cataloging my every expression, the way my hands twitched in my lap, the way I shifted around real uncomfortable like. There was a tiny half-smile hovering around the corner of his kisser, like he was almost amused. Cain was intimately familiar with the bumper cars that my thoughts could be, so he just waited until I had myself collected enough to turn and face him fully.

  “Are you okay?” He gave me a piercing look.

  I blinked, startled. “Me?”

  “You see anyone else here?”

  “No, but—” I shook my head. “Usually, you aren’t exactly the caring type.”

  “Well, consider this me coming out of my comfort zone.”

  I cocked my head to the side. “Oh, okay.”

  “Answer the question, Darla.”

  “Yeah, I’m just jake,” I said, then frowned. “I should be asking you the same.”

  “How do you figure?”

  I shrugged. “That place had to be worse for you than for me.”

  “The hotel?” I nodded. His gaze sharpened. “How’s that?”

  “Well, I have a body, or a physical barrier to protect me. You don’t have your body to shield you from whatever was going on in there.”

  “I might not have my own body,” Cain pointed out, with more patience than he was normally capable of. “But I had yours.”

  “So?”

  “So, I was still removed from everything, because I was, well, inside you.”

  “Oh!” I said and then my eyes went real big because the way he’d chosen to word that… well, it was downright… that is to say, it was… well, it was sexual! I cleared my throat and could feel the heat in my face rising and I couldn’t stop fidgeting.

  “Darla?”

  I couldn’t look up at him.

  “Darla!”

  “The bank’s closed!” I proper yelled at him when I finally looked up.

  “What?”

  “You can’t be talkin’ all grunts and moans and fizzy stuff with me, Cain Morgan,” I started.

  He frowned. “What in the hell—”

  “I will remind you that I am a lady!”

  “Darla,” Cain said finally, after a stretch of a few second’s silence. “When I said ‘inside’ you, I meant… literally.” He cleared his throat and then it seemed the wonkies had gotten to him too. “I didn’t mean…”

  “Ah,” I said real quick. “Now I know my onions—you weren’t talkin’ ‘bout your dingus.”

  He frowned again. “I don’t believe I ever have, nor ever will, talk about… my dingus.”

  “Anyhoo…”

  “Right. Anyhoo…” Cain watched me quietly for a long moment, while the soft music switched to something with a lighter bass. “After our meeting with Death, er Damon as you named him, are you okay?”

  “I’m…” Hmm, that was the question, wasn’t it? What was I? Certainly not hurt. A little scared? Yeah, a lot scared actually. And… apparently, I was being courted by Death, and pretty darn confused about it. Eternity was a long time to go steady with someone, no matter how novel their existence might be. I mean, did Damon really think he wouldn’t get bored with me, eventually? Like once the novelty of ‘once was dead, now alive instead’ wore off?

  “I’m swell,” I trailed, awkwardly.

  One graying brow climbed Cain’s forehead, and he shot me a look that told me he didn’t believe me, but he’d be nice and not call me out on it.

  “Okay, listen,” I said, unashamedly changing the subject. “There was something I wanted to talk to you about, actually.”

  Cain’s expression sharpened, his attention focused on my face. “What’s wrong?”

  Flustered, I dropped my hands down to my lap to smooth my skirt over my gams. Cain might complain about my girly clothes, but at least he was nice enough to dress me in something pretty in my dreams. “I just wanted to offer you an out.”

  “An out.” The words came out flat—more a statement than a question, but his brow furrowed in confusion.

  “Yeah.” I took a deep breath and forged ahead. “Look, this whole deal, it has a pretty good chance of going sideways. I’m doing my best to stack the deck in my favor, but at the end of the day, Death is still Death.”

  Cain’s hands curled into loose fists. “You think you’ll lose.”

  “I think I’d be one dumb Dora, or dumb Darla as the case may be, not to consider it a possibility. And if that happens… if that happens, I have no idea what that will mean for you.”

  “Hmm.”

  “So, before I go to meet Damon for our game, if you want, I’ll release you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  I shrugged. “It means I can release you to the ether, and let you go on to your afterlife. I’m thinking that would be the safest way to play this.”

  He breathed in real deep. “What if I’m not ready to go on to my afterlife?”

  “Cain,” I started, not sure he was understanding me. “I don’t want you to get reaped if I lose Damon’s game.”

  “I don’t want to get reaped either, but I’m not sure the flipside is any better.”

  I just looked at him for a moment as I wondered why in the world he wasn’t just agreeing. This was uncharted territory—it was something neither one of us knew anything about.

  “Cain,” I started.

  He took a step closer to me and even as I watched him, I had no clue what he was doing. He continued to walk right up to me until only a few inches separated us and then he lifted his arm and I watched one of his big hands come up to skim the side of my face with his knuckles. It was such an unexpected gesture, that my breath caught in my pipes, and I froze.

  Cain looked almost as surprised as I was. He pulled his hand away then, as if not sure why he’d reached out in the first place, and then walked over to the couch real quick like and plunked himself down. There was a hint of a red flush on the back of his neck when he turned away to stare at the black television screen.

  After a long moment of silence, while I resisted the urge to press a hand to where my chest felt fluttery and tight, Cain finally shifted his weight on the couch.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  A warm shiver of happiness ran down my spine, but I tried to tramp it back. The truth was, I didn’t like the idea of him going on to his ever after. Maybe just as much as he didn’t like it. “Cain, what I’m trying to tell you is—”

  “I know what you’re trying to tell me,” he interrupted. “That I’m in danger.”

  “Well, yeah, I guess that’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  He chuckled at that. “What you’re failing to forget, Darla, is that I’ve been in danger my whole life.” He stood up and started pacing the small living room. “That’s what a cop does—puts himself in danger to keep his community safe. So what’s the difference if I’m in danger when I’m alive or dead?”

  “Well, I don’t know.”

  But he wasn’t listening. He was pacing away from me and then he turned on his toes and paced right back again. He turned then to face me fully, his blue eyes intent. “What’s more—I’m not the only one who’s in danger.”

  “Who else is in danger?”

  “You.”

  “Oh.” While he had a point, I guessed I hadn’t included myself.

  He nodded like he was making up his own mind. “I’m not going to abandon you, Darla.”

  Things were a little too fraught for me to beam like a loon, which is what I wanted to do. I couldn’t stop my lips from curling up though. It was an unexpectedly nice thing Cain had just said and because I was accustomed to him being about as friendly as a wet raccoon with rabies, I was soaking this up.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  I looked up at him. “What… what do you mean?”

  “Why are you smiling like that?”

  “Oh, well…” I thought about why I was smiling like that. “I was just thinking about how you might complain about everything where I’m concerned, from my clothes, to my dates, to the music I like, but I get the sense that maybe Cain Morgan has grown to like me, just a tad.” Then I broke into a big grin.

  “You’re okay,” he grumbled.

  The truth was the curmudgeon was growing on me too.

  The more I thought about it, the more I realized I’d miss him if he was gone. I knew he couldn’t stay here forever—haunting his class ring or me, when I let him. But by all rights, I shoulda been insisting he move on to where he’d be safe, beyond Damon’s reach, where Cain couldn’t get stuck haunting a hotel that drifted around collecting lost souls that couldn’t move on. Cain wouldn’t have even been in danger if it weren’t for me—since I was the one who summoned him back in the first place.

  But… he wanted to stay. He’d just said so. And I was just selfish enough to be glad of it. I felt safer, having him at my back. Maybe, just maybe, the two of us combined might be enough to win against Death.

  “Okay,” I told him, unable to stop smiling. “One thing, though.”

  He frowned and made a little sound at the back of his throat that indicated I should continue. I was becoming pretty fluent in Cain’s version of language—I thought of it a little like caveman language.

  “If you’re really sure about coming with me,” I started.

  Cain cut in, his brows furrowing until they almost touched above the bridge of his nose. “Didn’t I just say I was?”

  “You did, you did.” I patted his shoulder. “But if you’re really set on going with me, then we need to have dinner with Taliyah first.”

  Cain’s face turned to stone. No expression whatsoever. He didn’t refuse outright though, so there was that. He didn’t exactly look thrilled by the idea either, though.

  “She’s your sister.” I kept my voice quiet, and as soft as I could. I wasn’t trying to nag him. “And if anything goes wrong, this might be the last chance the two of you get to talk. Do you really want to take the chance of never seein’ or talkin’ to your sister again?”

  He drew in a deep breath, and let it out slowly through his nose. Part of me was braced for an explosion. At the best of times, Cain was stubborn and didn’t like being told what he should or shouldn’t do. It was probably in part why his two marriages ‘didn’t take’.

  But instead of another round of ‘she’s not really my sister’, Cain’s shoulders slumped like he was in defeat.

  “Yeah,” he said quietly, and maybe a little grudgingly. “Okay.”

  I smiled and reached out to take his hand because it looked like he needed a friend just then. He looked down sharply at our joined hands, his brows going up in surprise when I closed my fingers over his. He didn’t pull away, though.

  “I think you’re making the right choice,” I told him. “Regret can be a terrible thing. Nothing weighs you down more. Take it from a gal who had enough to fill an entire house. And when you care about someone, tell them.” I squeezed his hand. “How else are they supposed to know?”

  Those blue eyes moved over my face, and Cain’s expression softened a little bit. Something that could have been a smile tilted up the corner of his kisser. “Fair enough, but Darla?”

  “Yes?”

  “I can only handle so much of you going melodramatic on me and guess what?”

  “What?”

  “Your quota is up.”

  I was grinning so hard, my cheeks hurt.

  Chapter Thirteen

  We ended up having dinner at Taliyah’s place.

  Originally, I’d thought to have her and the kids over to Cain’s, but if the conversation got heavy, or if it got too late, it was easier to be at her house for the children’s sakes. Easier to talk about the big scary things once little ears had already headed off to bed.

  We also ended up ordering delivery, because I was so nervous, I kept burning everything I tried to prepare, in spite of all of Libby’s careful tutoring. Cain had been baffled when I’d pulled the charred remains of a lasagna outta the oven, flapping a dish towel towards the open window, trying to clear out the smoke before the fire alarm started singing.

  “Why are you so nervous?” He hovered there, staring down at the blackened cheese along with the scorched glass dish like it was about to come to life. “It’s just my family.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Tell it to Sweeney.” I’d been tempted to just dump the whole dish in the garbage, but decided against it.

  He shrugged. “I think you’re making too big a deal about this. Just order in. The kids will be happy with burgers.”

  “Order in,” I said, aghast. “Order in?”

  He gave me a look like I was the one who was a few marbles short. “One less thing to be stressed out about.”

  He was right; the kids were thrilled with their burgers.